Silhouette of a Sparrow

by Molly Beth Griffin

  Isabella looked dismayed that I’d given up on my pole to watch our highly skilled neighbor fish instead. But, intrigued, she turned to watch me as the image took shape in my hands. I felt her eyes on me.

  “How do you do that?” she asked, her line still in the water. When I’d snipped back the last of the tail feathers, I pulled out a clean sheet and handed it to her, along with my scissors.

  “Do you want to try? Be careful with these; the points are sharper than they look.”

  Reluctantly, she reeled in her line and set her pole down next to mine. She took the crane scissors from me and turned them over and over in her hand. She touched them with reverence, as though she’d never held anything so delicate in her life, running her slender fingers over the handles, the crane’s arched body, the hinge, the blades.

  I shivered despite the heat.

  “My mother gave them to me so I wouldn’t dull my sewing scissors on paper. I was twelve. Father had just come home from the war and it was clear he wouldn’t be taking my side and helping me get back to real birding. So I make these.”

  “They’re divine. And your mother, she encourages this I hope?”

  “Yes. She prefers it to the alternative—collecting specimens and things like that. But here’s what she doesn’t know.” I took out the chalk and labeled the bird Ardea alba.

  “Latin names. I saw that on the gull you gave me. You’re a scientist as well as an artist then, I see.” I blushed. “Okay. You tried fishing, so I’ll give this a try.” She took the paper from me and looked down into the water. A small sunny drifted just below the surface. Tiny minnows darted anxiously around it, but it seemed to sense that we’d given up fishing for the moment, and it treaded water calmly It practically posed for Isabella.

  A minute later, she’d hacked a fish shape out of the black paper—an oval with tail fins and pouting lips. “It’s no use,” she said. “I’m terrible at this.” She crumpled the paper in her hand and tried to give the scissors back. I didn’t take them. Instead, I pulled another fresh sheet out of my oversized pocket.

  I’d never tried to put it into words before. I looked to the great white bird for help as I set out to explain a new way of seeing.

  “You can’t just look at it and say ‘it’s an egret’ and then try to cut the shape of an egret,” I told her, thinking it out as I went. “You have to see it differently. You have to follow its edges and know that it’s only an egret because it isn’t water or sky or beach. It’s an egret because it has boundaries.”

  I looked back to her and she knit her perfectly shaped eyebrows together. “Boundaries? I don’t think I follow you.”

  I took a deep breath, turning my eyes back to the bird. “You have to look for the borders between things and trace those dividing lines without thinking that you know what an egret is, or what a cormorant is, or what a grouse is. It’ll surprise you every time when the silhouette turns out looking real—like you just snatched the bird’s shadow from under its feet.”

  “But don’t the birds move?”

  I smiled. “That’s what makes it a challenge. You just have to be quiet and not startle them, like a real field biologist.” I pointed to the egret and said, “Look—she posed for me, and she stayed here fishing with us this long.” Isabella still seemed interested, so I went on. “Scientists used to kill birds in order to study them, you know. They shot them down and stuffed them, and then they made their drawings and took their measurements. Modern scientists have been trying to study birds from life, like we are. It was Audubon who changed all that.”

  “Audubon?”

  “He was an ornithologist. He pointed out that scientists were doing more damage than good with the way they were studying birds. Showed them another way. I’ve been a Junior Audubon Society member since I was six. Father and I used to do all kinds of excursions. Then Aunt Rachel would take me while he was away at war even though Mother didn’t like it. I thought Father would start up again when he came home—but it didn’t happen that way.”

  “Why don’t you go with Rachel anymore?”

  What was I doing? Why was I telling her all this? “Mother thinks it’s time for me to be a lady . . . and Father doesn’t really trust his sister, I don’t think. But at least he speaks to her. The rest of his family cut her off when she moved in with Sarah. I’ll bet Mrs. Harrington wouldn’t even admit to being related to Aunt Rachel—her own first cousin.”

  “‘Moved in with Sarah,’ you said? Is that her lover?” Isabella’s voice was casual. The word lover took me by surprise and then sank in slowly.

  “I suppose so. We never really talk about it that way. I guess my parents still like to consider it a Victorian friendship. They saw it differently in their time. Intimacy between women was just, well, normal. Now everyone thinks it’s a scandal. Sarah is just Aunt Rachel’s family, and we all know that. But I suppose they are . . . lovers.”

  We were quiet for a moment, watching the waves. I turned the word over and over in my mind: lovers . . . lovers . . . lovers . . . My skin tingled.

  “Anyway,” I said, shaking the word out of my head and handing Isabella the sheet of paper I still held, “pretend you’ve never seen a sunfish before, and look again. This kind of thing takes practice, so I’ll practice fishing while you try a second time.” I grabbed my pole and moved a little ways away so I wouldn’t frighten Isabella’s subject. And so my hands would stop trembling. I moved a little too quickly, though, and the egret shot me a suspicious glance. Then she flapped her wings and glided down the shore another twenty feet.

  I cast my line back into the water. The rocks made a rough seat and the sun glared down at me. I’d left my hat back with Isabella. But I barely noticed any discomfort as I gazed out at the lake and watched the sailboats drift like white clouds across the blue. I thought about egrets and fathers and aunts and beautiful girls in pants, and I thought about how many kinds of love there are in the world.

  The egret caught four or five courses of lunch in her new fishing spot. Isabella caught a decently rendered image of the sunny, and then put her line back in and caught the sunny himself, in celebration. “You’re not even a snack,” she said before releasing him again. I caught nothing, except maybe another freckle or two from the bright sun.

  “Do you want an ice cream?” Isabella asked, coming to join me on my rock. Midday had turned to afternoon and sweat had begun to collect at my temples. My stomach growled in protest over missing lunch. There was nothing I wanted more than an ice cream.

  But would Hannah be suspicious if I was gone too long? Would she tell her mother? If Mrs. Harrington knew I was out fishing with the dance hall girl she’d surely write to Mother. And what would Mother do? Tell Mrs. Harrington to keep a closer watch on me? Tell me to quit my job because it was clearly giving me improper ideas? Tell me to come home this instant so that she could keep me on a short leash for the rest of the summer, or the rest of my life? I could not let those things happen. I had to be careful.

  Then Isabella reached up with her soft fingers and tucked a flyaway tendril behind my ear. My heart hiccuped in my chest.

  “I’m buying,” I said, reeling in my line.

  Chipping Sparrow

  (Spizella passerina)

  “Tell me about your family, Isabella,” I said once we were settled under the picnic pavilion with our ice creams. Isabella had taken me there the long way, through the streets behind the hotel, so we wouldn’t have to pass in front of it on our way to the park. We hadn’t seen any other hotel guests yet, but I didn’t want to push my luck. My eyes skimmed right and left around the pavilion—no one I recognized. I was safe for the moment and determined to enjoy my ice cream.

  I’d chosen strawberry. She’d picked chocolate mint.

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?” I asked.

  “Brothers,” she said. “Plenty of them.” Then she stopped herself.

  “Just tell me what you want to,” I said. “I don’t mean to pry. I just . . . I want to k
now you.”

  “I’ll tell you anything. Everything, if you want to hear it. I just wasn’t sure how to start. Let’s see.” She paused a moment, gathered her thoughts, and continued. “I ran away from home when I turned fifteen,” she said. She ran away! I stared at her, wide eyed, and gestured for her to continue. “My parents live up on the Iron Range; my dad works in the mines. My mom is Lutheran, very Lutheran. She’s also very controlling. And very unhappy. I have four brothers, all younger than me. David, John, Andrew, and Michael—well, Mitch.”

  I wanted to ask about running away. What was it like? How did she do it? Was she scared? But instead, I let her continue the thread she’d started. “What are they like, your brothers?” I asked.

  “Well, the older ones are all pretty much the same: tough, bossy, stupid. They’re just going to end up in the mines and they don’t even care. But little Mitch—he’s different.”

  Her face changed then. The carefree air about her had settled into a deep thoughtfulness. She loved this brother, that was easy enough to tell, but there was something else there too.

  “He wants to be a boxer, like Jack Dempsey. I’m sure it’s partly because he wants to be stronger and tougher than he is with all those big brothers always pushing him around. But I think it’s mostly because he wants to go out into the world and do big things.” She smiled to herself, remembering him. “He loves the radio, and maps, and he wants his mother to be proud of him. He wants—wanted—me to be proud of him.”

  Then I had to ask: “Do you regret it?”

  “What?”

  “Running away.”

  “No! Heavens, no. I love the freedom. And I’m doing pretty well for myself with the dancing. At least, this is a really good gig. There were other places that, well, that weren’t so nice as this.” Her body stiffened, then with a deep breath she relaxed again. “Now things are better. I’m happy I left. But Mitch—I regret leaving him behind. I just don’t know if he’ll ever make it out of there like I did.”

  She went to work on her ice cream then; it had been melting while she talked. “I’m babbling,” she said through a bite of chocolate mint. “Tell me about you.”

  “Nothing to tell, really. Nothing exciting.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute. What are you doing out here for the summer, for instance? With this crazy aunt of yours, or whoever she is?”

  So I told her everything. About Mother and Father and the war; about Alice and Adam; about Teddy and the hope chest; and finally about Mrs. Harrington and Hannah and the hat shop. When I stopped to finish off the tip of my ice cream cone Isabella said, “What about the birds? I mean, you’re passionate about them, right?”

  “Well, yes. In some other life, I’d maybe go to college and study science. Keep the Miss Maples of the world from allowing beautiful creatures to be killed off in the name of fashion.” I laughed.

  “Some other life, huh?” She wasn’t laughing.

  “Oh, my mother would never let me. I’m supposed to get married and have babies and run a steady middle-class household like a good girl.” I told her about the note from my biology teacher, and she stared at me in disbelief.

  “Why don’t you run away?” she said. She was serious.

  I licked strawberry from my fingers and thought about it.

  “I suppose because I love them, you know? My family I want to do right by them. I want them to think well of me. I want to make decisions that will make them happy too.”

  And there I felt the conversation, and possibly our friendship, grind to a halt.

  Her face turned blank and stony; her eyes hardened.

  “I don’t mean . . . Oh, Isabella, I’m sorry. I’m not criticizing you. I’m sure you made the right decision for you. I admire you for doing what you love—I really do. You’re a beautiful dancer.” She just looked at me and looked at me. I withered.

  A long moment passed as a little girl chased her brother in circles around the picnic tables. The roller coaster clattered by overhead. A streetcar boat sounded its deafening whistle down at the docks. Isabella just looked at me with those hard, dark eyes.

  Finally, I got up from the table. “I’ll go,” I said. I got four whole miserable steps away before she called out to me in a small, sad voice I could hardly tell was hers.

  “Do you really think . . .” I turned, with a heavy sigh of relief still mixed with worry. But the stone face had crumbled around the edges and the eyes were glossy with tears behind them. “Do you really think that I’m a—a—beautiful dancer?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re like. . . fireworks.”

  And the tension broke into a hundred pieces at our feet.

  “Can I see you again?” she said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the napkin from her ice cream cone.

  “Anytime you want. Just come by the shop, or have Avery give me a note.”

  “I will. Soon.”

  “Okay.” Then I turned to go because I was grinning so hard I thought my face would crack. I knew I probably looked like a fool and I had to get out of there before I embarrassed myself further.

  “And Garnet?” she said. I composed my face as well as I could and turned back. “What is that?” She pointed to a little brown bird that hopped around under the picnic table, feasting on crumbs.

  “Just a chipping sparrow,” I said without hesitation. “Why?”

  She smiled. “Just wondering.” She laughed that chattering laugh as I headed off toward the hotel with a sparrow’s quick steps and a light heart.

  Halfway back to the hotel I saw Mrs. Granger from room 304 with her small son. I smiled and waved hello, relieved that the sighting I’d been nervous about all day had happened after I’d said good-bye to Isabella. My luck had held.

  Isabella was true to her word. The very next afternoon as I sat with the Harringtons on the veranda, Avery brought me a note on a little silver tray.

  I’m out back. I want to take you flying. We’ll only be gone an hour. Please come?

  Flying?

  “The librarian has a new book for me,” I told Mrs. Harrington. “I’m going to go pick it up. I’ll only be out for a bit.”

  “Fine, fine,” she mumbled, and she returned to the crossword puzzle in the daily paper. She’d been at the thing for an hour and seemed to be making little progress.

  “Would you pick up some yellow thread for me in town?” Hannah asked. “I’ve run out.”

  “Of course.” I flashed her an innocent smile, and within two minutes I was out the front door and headed around to the back of the hotel to meet Isabella.

  She took me on the carousel. Exactly one week earlier, when I’d snuck off to the park on my own, I’d looked longingly at the carousel but decided against it. I felt too silly to ride it alone. Climbing aboard with Isabella the following Friday felt perfect.

  It was a drab, cloudy day, but the painted horses shone under the ride’s thousand lights as we climbed on. I tried to sit in a carriage seat, but she insisted I ride the over-and-under horse next to hers—a white horse with a red bridle and a swept-back mane that made it look to be in motion even when it stood still. I rode sidesaddle, both appalled by and jealous of my pants-wearing companion, who rode her horse like a man. The ticket taker started at the single red lightbulb fixed into the ceiling among all the clear bulbs and worked his way around to us. My change purse was on the bureau in my room at the hotel. “No free rides,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Thankfully, Isabella had the fare for us both. “I’m taking you flying, remember?” she said. Then the Sousa march started up and the horses came alive.

  We flew.

  “My thread?” Hannah asked when I returned to the veranda.

  I’d forgotten. I remembered to pick up a library book only because Isabella asked on our way to the hotel what excuse I’d come up with. But I’d completely forgotten about Hannah’s yellow thread.

  She saw me falter.

  She glanced around. We were alone—her mother had
gone into the lobby to listen to the radio. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re up to something,” she said quietly with her thin lips in a sneer.

  “Nonsense. I just left my purse,” I said, shocked that it was the truth that saved me. “I’ll go get it now and fetch you some thread, Hannah. I’m sorry.”

  I dodged her pointed glare and scurried off to grab my purse and run the errand, my mind buzzing the whole way into town. Hannah was suspicious. Mrs. Harrington, I could tell, had given me up for a lost cause and didn’t care what I did as long as I went to work in the mornings, stayed out of trouble in the afternoons, found my way back to the hotel by dinner, and went to bed at a “Christian” hour. In fact, she seemed to like that I was out of her hair most of the time and away from her impressionable daughter, who I could do nothing to improve and who could not, therefore, benefit from my company in the least. She would never have approved of what I was doing, so I simply didn’t tell her. She lived under the happy assumption that I spent my afternoons walking at the lake or holed up at the library, and she didn’t bother herself about it much. Hannah was not so easily fooled. Though until she knew what to tell on me for, I didn’t think she would say anything to her mother.

  But if I snuck out every day and constantly risked being seen by other hotel guests and confused my own mind with constant lying, Hannah would be sure to find out what I was doing and whom I was doing it with. So I would need to be more careful. I would need to wait awhile before seeing Isabella again.

  The thought set off a pang inside me—Isabella was joy and excitement and adventure and everything else seemed dull in comparison—but there was no way around it.

  After I delivered the thread I excused myself to my room. I wrote a note telling Isabella that I was sorry but I needed a little time to let Hannah’s suspicion subside before we went out together again. I rang for Avery, our willing messenger, and asked him to deliver it.

  He noticed my long face when he took the note from me at the door of the suite.